Moon Struck
by Jay Puma
Summary: A mysterious boy, one who is talked about throughout the school, just wishes for a companion. But if you wish for a girl, be sure to include clothes with that order! Unaware of a passing shooting star, BAM! instant girl companion! But how, exactly, does a shy guy handle a sticky situation like this, including buying ladies' underwear? Inspired by A.I. Love You by Ken Akamatsu
1. The Wish

When the bell rang for Starling Head High, or Shh, as the dark hedgehog called it, the crowd would flood the halls to rush out into the open like wildebeests stampeding towards a water hole. The black hog had his own stash and preferred not to be the constant center of attention, on the pedestal in which the school social universe revolved around.

Shadow was, quite exactly, the black sheep of Shh, not just because of his fur. He lived alone in a house on the cliff separating the populated beach from an unnoticed cove. The only reason he went to this school was because he was within walking distance of it. Girls were infatuated with his looks and guys were intimidated because of this.

The hog always tried to get home and stay home before anyone could flirt or fight with him. The sooner the violet blazer of the private school got off of him and tossed to the couch, the better. Putting a lone wolf in a popular dog sweater was the best way to describe it.

Though sometimes Shadow would hear the familiar voices of Shh laughing to the left, enjoying themselves around a campfire during sunset. He felt as if he was envious...Envious? Why? He had no problem with Todd and Todd had no problems with him; for all Shadow cared, Todd and Jessie could snuggle all through the whole night.

Was it...the _feeling _that came from those two? Something that was private and nobody's business? Todd and Jessie didn't date for show like the constant break-up hook-up routine at Shh.

The hedgehog moved away from earshot of Todd and Jessie, down into the cove nobody visited. The cove's view of the moon was full and brilliant, making it seem like a friend whose ear was always open.

"You seem like a nice person," Shadow said. "It'd be us against them all, wouldn't it? Why aren't there people like you in my life?"

The pale orb bathed the cove with its white light. He sighed. "I wish...wish that maybe you were a hedgehog like me, and... Maybe you and I could be together." Another sigh; what good came from talking to something miles away with no ears? He walked away, the only comfort seeming to be sleeping.

Shooting stars are miles away, but they have excellent hearing.

* * *

Shadow's bed felt warmer than usual. Might as well not get up; wasn't everyday he experienced such temperature. And going to school surrounded by lovesick attention whores who'd turn on their friends and hot-heads itching for fights was not worth losing the coziness.

The coziness cooed with a shift, and Shadow's elbow registered a _thum-thump._

As soon as Shadow rolled onto the floor he questioned how many of the lunatics at Shh found out where he lived. But they were too tan to be this pale gray-

Blood splurted out of Shadow's nose and his back hit the wall. He clamped his hand over the bleeding nose. What sort of girl sneaks into someone's house- _Splurt! _More blood.

"Ohh..." a soft voice cooed, "oh, Shadow...What's wrong with your nose?" Tapering gray hands unfolded his. "You're bleeding, Shadow. Did you hit something hard?"

In an attempt to find a face he raised his eye level, just to have more blood gushing out.

"Ah- Who are you?!" The girl sat up, tilting her head and making an "oh".

"You...you don't remember-" Ah! By the clock, it was ten minutes til the first class started! Late! He ran out of his room and grabbed his uniform, still wondering-

His nose erupted again.

* * *

"Oh! Shadow's nose is bleeding!"

"Was there a fight?"

"If there was, I'd like to congratulate the lucky one who broke his nose," a guy laughed. Shadow could just imagine the chatter if they found out what happened- gush!

In his first class, the academically superior were crowded over something on the internet.

"Yeah, did you hear? The moon was hit by a meteor before it entered the atmosphere!"

"I heard some rock got loose and could've landed near the beach! You guys wanna go looking for it later?" The beach? Maybe some landed in the cove...

In English, Shadow flipped to the wrong page and stumbled across a somehow familiar face. A pale gray furred girl, but she had black hair instead. "Selene - The Moon Incarnate Goddess" the page read, "depicted as a pale young maiden who glows brightly in darkness as a result of her luminosity. She descends nightly to be with her love Endymion."

"Hey," he asked the boy in front of him. "You and your friends were talking about how the moon got hit by a meteor or something. Do you have a time when this happened?"

"The story's in the newspaper, if you want the facts," he offered. "But I think the rocks entered the atmosphere at around ten-twenty. They landed two minutes afterwards." The rodent grinned, with a "Wow, I didn't know you had such an interest in astronomy."

The bell for school ended and Shadow rolled out the two-story window. He could here a few shrieks but once he landed unfazed, they became squeals. The hog dashed through the forest and grabbed a newspaper from a seaside stand on his way home.

The house was quiet. Was she just a prank for the true-

"Shadow! You're home!" A pale flash and- Shadow's nose had run dry. "Oh! I was afraid... you wouldn't come back…" She looked up at him, like a little sister who was lost and afraid in the rain,…with the most dazzling midnight sapphire eyes. "Are… are you still angry at me, Shadow?"

Angry? "Wha- N-no, I'm not angry…I was just startled…I don't think I understand what happened." As she buried her head in his heart, he reached for the throw on the couch to drape over the girl. "Do…do you mind explaining to me?"

* * *

"I see…" the girl cooed as her hair swirled around in the wind. The sun reddened the sky and sea, not the best place to do homework as they talked. "Because you weren't aware of the shooting star, you didn't realize how your wish came true.

"Please…I hope you don't regret…"

So…the piece that fell to the earth was her. She became Galatea, only…

"Well, now that I know what'd happened," the hedgehog assured, "I can say that I'm proud to have wished for you, Selene."

"Selene?" she echoed.

"Well, you _were _a piece of the moon, and now you're alive." He smiled at her. "It suits you."

"Selene…" she started to giggle. "Oh, thank you, Shadow!" The way she clung to him…it warmed him. "Thank you for wishing for me."

He returned the embrace. "You're welcome, Selene."


	2. Shopping

Shadow's next morning wasn't so bloody and rushed. In the hazy not-asleep not-awake state, a warm batter scent snuck up his nose. Rubbing his eyes he tried to remember what happened yesterday as he walked into the kitchen-

_Splurt! _Oh yeah; he'd have to buy clothes for Selene after school. But a stack of nice-looking pancakes was on the countertop to her right. She turned her head, and thankfully she was wearing an apron. "Good morning, Shadow!"

"Hi, Selene. Are you making breakfast for me?" How'd she even learn how to cook?

"I followed the directions on this," she cooed, pointing to the back of the Insta-Pan Pancake Mix. "I hope that you like them, Shadow."

Nom. Delicious. Best breakfast of the school week, no doubt; yesterday there wasn't a breakfast at all. "You can have the rest, Selene; I've got to get ready for school now," he said as he went into the front room.

"'School?'" she echoed. "Is that where you went yesterday?" Her face brightened eagerly, "Can I come, too?"

Shadow froze up. "Uh, n-no!" The pale one's face withered. "I-I-I mean, you need clothes just to go outside, and for that you can just borrow some of mine, but for school, you need special clothes, like these-" he held up his blazer –" and I don't have the girl's uniform. You'll have to stay here until I come back, or hang out at the cove."

He pulled out a t-shirt and pants for Selene to wear so there would be less nose splurting and skin showing. "I'll come back and get you so we can go buy clothes for you, okay?"

"Oh.. okay, Shadow. Have a good day at school!" she called as he walked out the door.

* * *

"All right, everyone, homework to the front please." Groans and wincing followed after homework. Shadow would have been right alongside them, too; Selene had nearly driven him to fling his notebook into the tide last night, eager to see something that was agonizingly painful to the rest of them. But he'd gotten the work done, even while a partially covered hedgehog hovered over him in dying light.

Honestly, what's so bad about homework? Just do it and you won't have to cram before class. Most of the time Shadow did his in the middle of notes so the lesson was still fresh. Sheesh.

"Hey, Shadow," among the shuffling of papers and feet, the kids who sat at the back of the classroom called. As he turned his head, "Word's going around that you got hammered in the face by the football team." Snickering as Shadow frowned, they started back up on their phones again. Well, the only ones in school who know that was a lie were Shadow _and _the football team. He sighed as paper-wads, probably made up of yesterday's homework bounced off the back of his head.

By lunch, the team had announced to everyone they would enact a live demonstration of the fight at the courtyard, where Shadow spent his lunchtime alone in the trees with a stray cat, his only friend until Selene came along. Mox maow-ed to signal the approach of a horde of purple blazers. "Good girl, Mox," he whispered, rubbing his head before she fled.

"There he is! Our little black _tree_hog," the leader, Jack, joked, received with a range of laughter. "C'mon down and we'll go easier on you."

Shadow slid off the branch and landed on his feet. "You know as well as I do there wasn't a fight yesterday," he puffed.

"Aw, don't be like that! Everybody knows you got creamed by me and my boys before school started. No need to deny defeat, Hedgehog."

"Oh, really? Then, please, refresh my memory," he said, tauntingly bowing at the team. "Because I think if it really happened, I don't think I'd have a scratch on me."

Jack charged wildly, and while dodging Shadow was able to send him into the base of the tree. The next two ended up falling on their faces, and the last of them, the biggest, had been punching air until his opponent ducked under the stone wall separating the courtyard from pedestrians.

Girls were squealing, the photography club had flashed several shots of the battle, and everyone scattered as the bell rang. "This isn't over, Hedgehog!" Jack threatened as he ran off with a bleeding broken nose.

"Oh, Shadow!" A straggling group of girls surrounded him immediately. "Oh, Shadow, you were amazing!"

"Yeah, you really showed them, Shadow!"

"Shadow, will you please go to the movies with me?"

The minute-left bell rang and they scattered once more. The rest of the day, all Shadow could hear buzzing in his ears was about the fight during lunch. He was even pulled out of class to be questioned by the faculty. "No, I didn't hit anyone, sir," he repeated. "I avoided their attacks and any injuries that occurred were not my fault." At least he was able to skip English class.

Once the bell rang he made a mad dash home, to find Selene etching in the dirt with a stick in the front yard. Her face lit up when she saw him. "Hello Shadow! Welcome home!" She ran over and hugged him. "Are we going to buy some clothes now?"

"Yeah, as soon as I get out of this," he promised, unbuttoning the blazer and shoving it into the mail slot that'd come with the house. He held her hand and led her down the road in the same direction as the populated beach.

"Oh, wow, Shadow!" Selene exclaimed. "Look at all those people down there!"

"Yeah, the beach gets pretty crowded after school," he explained. "But it always seems crowded until after dark."

"That's when the tide comes in," she cooed. "There's not as many people at all when that happens. Sometimes there are two or one in the water and on the weekends there's still people after that. But there's never as many when the sun is up."

Shadow realized her tone as she said that, and her face confirmed it; a longing, unhappy stare at all those Mobians down there, laughing and playing, being noisy and fun. When the moon was up by herself, there were few people playing there, when the tide was high because of her. Poor Selene…

"Tell you what," he tried cheering her up, "I'll buy you a swimsuit and you can run around on the beach all day when I'm at school, okay?"

"Oh really, Shadow?" Her eyes sparkled and she laughed, running around him, like in orbit. "Thank you!"

They first went to a store that sold everything, where clothes were cheaper than at the mall. He walked over to the Juniors' section. While Selene roamed about the racks and eyed the clothes eagerly, Shadow went to find an associate.

"Excuse me," he asked the lady near the dressing room counter. "Uh—"

"Oh, hi, Shadow!" She seemed very familiar… "I'm Todd's mom, Sarah, remember?"

"Oh, right,"-he tried to remember where he'd seen her before. "Um… my friend needs help with her size. She hasn't been measured in a while, and-"

"Oh, sure!" the fox walked right over to Selene, who was holding up a pink frilly blouse. Shadow sat down on the bench as Sarah led the hedgehog into the dressing room. Minutes moved the hand of the clock on the post in the store before Sarah emerged with the girl trailing close behind.

"She's a lovely girl, Shadow," she said before going on, "Top wise, I think she's a double M, and if she needs to buy bras, a 35-double C. As for her bottoms, a size small will do. Let me know if you two need any more help." Sarah went back assisting the other associate at the desk.

"She was very nice," Selene mewed. "I've seen her on the beach before with her family. What now Shadow? Can I pick out some clothes now?"

"Yeah," he said, standing up, "I'll help you." The girl went back to the blouses again, and Shadow helped her find the right sizes for the tops. She got the hang of it and soon Shadow had to run to the front of the store to grab a cart.

As he cut through the Men's section, he remembered how little variation his own wardrobe had due to the infrequent trips to the grocery store and the too frequent outings to Shh. With Selene around, she'd probably want to go just about everywhere up and down the coast and through the town, so he'd need some of his own new clothes. He grabbed a few clearance jeans and some loose tees (those ones with the witty sayings) and pushed the cart over to the Juniors' section again.

Selene had a pile composed of shirts, dresses and pants waiting for the cart. She insisted on showing him the items there, and Shadow tried to persuade her that "I can see them when we get home after we get some other things, all right, Selene?"

"Okay," she agreed, putting the pile into the cart. He led her to the seasonal area which was showcasing swimwear. The hedgehog pulled off a two-piece swimsuit with a smile. White with orange decals, not polka dots but repeated like so.

The total was about a hundred and fifty two dollars and change. Shadow grumbled when realized there was only about thirty dollars left to spend on the lingerie store in the mall. He tried to be firm when Selene had tried to get him to follow him into the store, but he had to follow her into the shop to pay for the items.

"For the bras,"—his face burned—"you'll want to find one that says '35CC'. And for the panties"—searing cheeks—"you want one that says small, okay? Let me know when you've find about two or three, okay?"

He had to sit on a bench facing a very suggestive wallpaper advert for their products for about a half hour, having overdone cheeks when Selene came back holding ten pairs of boyshort panties and five bras with lace, animal prints, bows and other items.

Thanks to a sale, the dent wasn't as bad as Shadow had heard these upper-end department stores usually made in their customers' wallets in order to sucker someone into a membership: about twenty-seven dollars.

"Bye, you two! Such a cute couple!" the cheery rodent clerk called after them. Shadow had blushed more and flinched before trying to hurry out of the store.

"Shadow! Wait," Selene cooed, looking up at him innocently. "Um, what did she mean by 'a couple?'"

"Well… Selene…" he muttered, glancing around as if shop signs held the key to explaining this to her. "uh… when a boy and girl are around each other a lot…and they're not related…uh, people call them a couple."

"What's it mean?"  
"Er…it means, that those two are dating."

"Dating?"

"Yeah… it's when they get to know each other, on… more than a friendship basis. Sometimes they live together…or, um, share a room together. Because…they like each other, uh, a lot more than friends like each other."

She looked a little lost, glancing down at the tile, and fingers to her lip in pondering. But she sprang up and faced him with a gasp, bright eyes and face glowing radiantly.

"Shadow! _We're_ a couple!" she exclaimed, too quiet for everyone to hear, but Shadow flushed, clamping his hand over her mouth.

"Shhush!" he said. What would've happened to her if the girls and guys at Shh thought they were _dating? _He didn't want Selene to be hurt by jealous girls and punch-happy jocks; her body was petite and soft, certainly not able to take a blow. "Not out here."

At the house, she bounced around excitedly. "A couple! Dating!"

"Selene, let me explain—"

"But you said, you said that a couple lived together and shared a room together. And…and they like each other a lot." Selene's pale face tightened up a bit. "You…you _do _like me, right?"

"Of course I like you, Selene," he assured… "Eh… it's just…"

"You…you wouldn't date me?"

"Uh-N-n-no! I _would! _I would!" What was he saying?! He didn't want to hurt her feelings!

"You said…you wanted us to be together," she said. That's right… and besides, she didn't know that much about dating anyway, how bad could it be?

"Yes, Selene. I guess… I guess you're right." He smiled at her. "I want to be with you. I wished for you, right?" She bounced over and hugged Shadow, burrowing into his shoulder.

_Yeah, how bad could this be?_

* * *

***BONUS***

Shadow tossed in his sleep, trying to get comfortable. His face found warmth in a soft pillow, with silk on his cheeks. He woke up, and jerked back, falling out of the bed. Selene stirred, rubbing her eyes and rose up to see Shadow in a small puddle of blood near his head. "Shadow?" she mumbled.

"I forgot to buy you pajamas," he grumbled.


End file.
